Analysis:
Olmert's speech: Old wine, new bottle - Olmert's speech
came at a time when the region, thanks to the fanaticism of
key players like Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas, seems perched
on the edge of an abyss - Olmert seemed to be giving up idea
of "Greater Israel" and endorsing Palestinian State
in evacuated territories

So
Bush cozies up to the Syrians: Even though Syria is suspected
of planning Hairi and Gemayel murders - White House seemed
to be working a potential Syrian-Iranian-Iraqi triangle last
week to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq

Longwood
pastor quits as coalition president: Rev. Joel Hunter was
set to take the reins of the national Christian Coalition -
because he realized he could not broaden emphasis to saving
the environment and easing of poverty

Witnessing
the End of a Career: Defense Minister Amir Peretz’s
days in his senior cabinet post are numbered. His future as party
leader is also in jeopardy - Peretz was first civilian appointed
to the post rather than a retired general

White
House Hopefuls Vary on Iraq Policy - Sen. John McCain says
he cannot ask a soldier to "return to Iraq, to risk life
and limb, so that we might delay our defeat for a few months or
a year. That is more to ask than patriotism requires."

U.S.
Plans $125M Gitmo Legal Compound - U.S. government is drafting
new rules for the trials under the Military Commissions Act, which
President Bush signed last month. The Supreme Court had declared
that previous efforts to try Guantanamo detainees were unconstitutional

Haggard
Case Refuels Debate on Gay Conversion - "Haggard is Exhibit
A of how people can't change their sexual orientation," said
Wayne Besen, a gay-rights activist and author, according to The
Associated Press. "With all that he had to lose – a
wife, children, a huge church – he had to be who he was
in the end. He couldn't pray away the gay."

Analysis:
Assad's sleight of hand - Killing intended to remind the anti-Syrian
forces in Beirut that President Bashar Assad has not forgiven
them for forcing him to pull his army out of Lebanon in a humiliating
manner

Moscow
Banker Killed in Suspected Contract Hit On Tuesday: Was the
latest such murder in Russia over the past few weeks, with the
country’s central bank deputy chief Andrei Kozlov shot dead
in September and the chief of Vneshtorgbank’s local department
Alexander Plokhin killed earlier this month

Supermax
Lockdown: US military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Guantánamo and elsewhere are administered by Army reserves,
many of whom have worked in the civilian prisons in the United
States. The administration of Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq was not particularly brutal in comparison to conditions
in ordinary "supermax" prisons in the United States

"Since 9/11, Bush and his top security
advisers have become the law and have exercised ultimate power
over enemies created in our de facto state of emergency ... When
should the "exception" come to an end? When does a country
- whose hallmark has been to safeguard rights of the accused,
freedom of speech and association and to draw the line against
torturing enemies - decide that enough is enough?"

Somalia
on brink of major war: Numerous nations backing Islamists
- Five months after Islamist militias defeated a coalition
of CIA-financed warlords, a setback for U.S. counterterrorism
efforts in the region

Iran
seeks to keep US troops in Iraq: Some policy experts in Tehran
say a full-blown civil war in Iraq would constitute a "catastrophic
development" for Iranian geopolitical interests - wants to
keep US forces bogged down in Iraq, wants to keep option of retaliating
against American forces should Iran's nuclear facilities be attacked

ARMAGEDDON
TIRED OF THIS: THE real winner of America's mid-term elections
is the regime in Tehran - Iran has emerged as the big power broker
in the Middle East